The Last Place on Earth Page 3

“We’ll try the front door,” he told his womenfolk. They headed for the walkway.

  “They’re not there,” I said. “I rang the bell twice. And—” I caught myself before I said, their SUV is missing.

  Mr. and Mrs. Waxweiler didn’t even pause, but Gwendolyn spun around and shot me a look as if to say … something. But what? Be quiet? Go away? Watch out?

  Something bad. Her look definitely conveyed something bad.

  She spun back around (I’m not just saying that; as a member of the school drill team, Gwendolyn can spin with the best of them) and followed her parents to the front door. Mr. Waxweiler pushed the doorbell and waited, hands on hips.

  As if she sensed my eyes on her family, Mrs. Waxweiler turned around and stared at me, her fake smile gone.

  Face hot, I gave her a limp wave and hurried away. But after a few paces, something made me glance back. The three of them were still standing side by side on the front stoop, but now Gwendolyn was pointing off to the right. There was something in the landscaping or … no. She was pointing at the window.

  Her parents stepped up to the very edge of the rosebushes and peered at whatever it was that Gwendolyn had spotted. There was no way they could look into the house. The blinds were shut. There was nothing to see except …

  The shooting star sun-catcher. That was it. They were staring at that little bit of stained glass, dangling from a suction cup, as if its blue and yellow rays could reveal the secret of life.

  Five

  “HENRY’S STILL OUT?” Mr. Vasquez, our history teacher, asked.

  “Yeah.”

  It was Friday: test day. Mr. Vasquez put a sheet facedown on my desk.

  “Whatever Henry has, it must be catching.” He nodded at the empty desk on the far side of Henry’s. Gwendolyn was absent, too.

  “Must be.” I shivered.

  Friday was the worst day to miss school because so many teachers gave tests. Besides, there was a football game tonight, which meant that Gwendolyn would have to forgo a halftime performance. Almost as bad, she didn’t get to walk around all day wearing tiny blue shorts and a bright yellow T-shirt that said DRILL.

  “‘Drill,’” Henry had said, the previous Friday, when a girl wearing the shirt had passed us in the hall. “You think that’s meant to be a noun or a verb?”

  I considered. “Verb. So if a girl is all, ‘Wait, what was I supposed to be doing?’ she can just look at her shirt and be like, ‘Oh yeah—drill routine.’”

  “Sensible.” He nodded. “It’s a trend that should catch on, kind of like casual Fridays, only this would be verb Fridays. The dancers could wear T-shirts that say ‘Dance,’ and the math geeks would go with ‘Calculate.’ The teachers, of course, would wear shirts that said ‘Teach.’ Yours could say ‘Paint’ or ‘Draw,’ depending on your mood.”

  “How about you?” I said. “What would your shirt say?”

  He looked off to one side for a moment, thinking. And then he smiled. “‘Sleep.’”

  Had that conversation really happened only a week ago? I still couldn’t believe how much had changed.

  History tests distributed, Mr. Vasquez returned to his desk. “You may begin.”

  I flipped over my paper and read the first question: How did the Black Death get its name?

  I wrote: The Black Death got its name from the black swellings, or buboes, that characterized the disease, along with the black spots that followed. The buboes appeared on the armpits, neck, and/or groin. If the buboes were lanced, the blood that came out was black, thick, and foul-smelling.

  Around the room, students shifted in their seats and cleared their throats. It was hard to write this stuff without squirming.

  Next question: How did the bubonic plague epidemic (the Black Death) affect communities in Europe?

  The epidemic destroyed communities. Families broke apart when the well rejected the sick. Essential services collapsed. In some areas, there was little law and order because the enforcers had died. People panicked as they struggled for their own survival. Properties stood empty. Corpses were dumped in the street or buried in mass graves. Crops withered in the field, and untended cattle wandered in the streets.

  This test was not doing wonders for my mood. I’d be happy when we finished the chapter on the Middle Ages and moved to the Renaissance and beyond. I was ready to hear about great art and guillotines. Let me eat cake.

  Before I had a chance to answer the third question (How did the pneumonic plague spread?) Mr. Vasquez let out an enormous, wet sneeze. Thirty-two heads shot up at once.

  “Bless you,” someone murmured from the back.

  The pneumonic plague spread through droplets in the air, primarily from coughs and sneezes, I wrote, suppressing a giggle.

  * * *

  I’d never paid enough attention to Gwendolyn to notice who her friends were, so the DRILL shirts were a big help. During nutrition, I walked up to a girl I recognized from my chemistry class.

  “Do you know Gwendolyn Waxweiler?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have her cell number?”

  She thought for a moment. “No.”

  “Do you know anyone who would?”

  She thought for another, slightly longer, moment. “No.”

  I had no more luck with the next two girls I asked, but before the bell rang in math class, I hit pay dirt.

  “Are you friends with Gwendolyn Waxweiler?” I asked a pinch-faced drill team girl I’d previously managed to avoid.

  She narrowed her eyes. If she didn’t watch out, the line between her eyebrows would become permanent. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I need her phone number.”

  “What for?”

  I stifled several sarcastic responses. “She’s out today, and I need to give her the history homework.”

  She straightened the notebook on her desk. “Most teachers post assignments on the school website.”

  “This one doesn’t.” (Actually, he did.)

  The bell rang, and she still hadn’t turned over the number. Defeated, I trudged to my seat across the classroom. At the end of class, however, the pinch-faced girl surprised me by slipping a scrap of paper on my desk.

  “Just don’t tell her where you got it,” she said.

  Gwendolyn won’t answer, I thought, punching in her number after school. She’d see my unfamiliar number in her display, and let it go to voice mail. Fine. I’d leave her a message.

  Cars crowded the pickup line in front of the school. I stood just outside the main door, in the shade of the overhang. It was another hot afternoon. Surely Peter would come get me.

  When Gwendolyn’s phone picked up on the first ring, it suddenly hit me that I had no idea what I was going to say. Henry’s been out, and then today you were out, and that just seemed weird since you seemed fine yesterday, so I thought I’d call and—

  “The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected.”

  I didn’t even realize I’d made a sound till a guy from my Spanish class appeared at my side and touched my arm. “Are you okay?”

  Everyone was looking at me.

  “Not really,” I said. “No.”

  Peter didn’t show up at the school, and he didn’t answer his phone (which, being typical behavior, didn’t worry me). After waiting fifteen minutes, I gave up and walked home.

  By the time I staggered into the house, I was out of breath and drenched in sweat. After dropping my bag in the kitchen, I went through the living room and down the hallway. The worn blue carpet needed a good vacuuming, but right now that was pretty low on my list of priorities.

  In my room, I booted up my laptop. A few clicks later, I had the information I needed.

  I pushed open the door to Peter’s gloomy bedroom, where he sat slumped in his armchair, playing a game on his phone.

  “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” I asked.

  The room looked better in the dark, which may have been why Peter hadn’t bothered to change the overhead
light since it burned out almost a year ago. As usual, the shades were drawn.

  “Huh?” The phone cast a ghostly glow over his face.

  “I called your phone like five times, and you didn’t pick up.”

  “What? Oh. Yeah.”

  “It was really hot, and—oh, never mind. I need you to drive me somewhere.”

  He shifted his weight in the chair and thumbed his phone. “I’m kind of busy.”

  “It’s an emergency.”

  “I very much doubt that.” With an index finger, he scratched his stubbly chin. Peter had been cute enough in high school, when he played on the basketball team and exposed his skin to sunlight on a regular basis. But too many microwave burritos and not enough activity was making him soft and pale and scruffy. At least he wasn’t dirty. A combo aroma of body wash, deodorant, and plug-in room freshener wafted into the hallway.

  From past experience, I knew that begging didn’t work on Peter. Nor did threatening to complain to our mother, who wouldn’t do anything, anyway. That left bribery.

  “I’ll buy you hot Cheetos,” I said.

  At last he perked up. “Deal.”

  * * *

  Gwendolyn lived in a unguarded gated community, which meant that we had to wait maybe fifty seconds before someone who lived there punched in the magic code, after which we followed them into the development. So much for security. If Peter’s crappy car could get through, anyone could.

  “Tax records,” I told Peter, when he asked how I’d gotten the address. “It’s all online.”

  If I had expected him to be impressed by my cleverness, I would have been disappointed.

  Gwendolyn’s house, beige stucco with a red tile roof and wood trim, was just as pretty as three identical houses on her street. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Unless decay and neglect come into style, no one will ever want to live in a house that looks like ours.

  No one answered the door at the Waxweilers’ house. I tried the bell twice and then went back to the car.

  “No one’s there.”

  “Which proves what, exactly?” asked Peter.

  “Nothing.” With a sigh, I fastened my seat belt. “I wanted to come because I don’t know what else to do.”

  “I don’t get why you’re freaking out,” Peter said, starting the car. “So Henry went on vacation without telling you. So what?”

  “Henry never does anything without telling me.” I took one last look at the closed-up house. “Peter—wait.”

  Something colorful flashed in a front window. I hurried over the tidy lawn and got as close to the window as I could. (Like the Hawkings, the Waxweilers favored thorny plants.) It was close enough. Dangling on the other side of the windowpane was a shooting star sun-catcher, just like the one at Henry’s house.

  Breathlessly, I told Peter the news.

  “And this is significant because…?”

  “I don’t know! But it has to mean something. And if we can figure out what that something is, then maybe we’ll find Henry.”

  Peter pulled away from the curb. “You said Henry and Gwen have been friends a long time, right?”

  “Gwendolyn. No one calls her Gwen. Their families have been friends a long time. Henry and Gwendolyn went to that private school together. It’s not like Henry would hang out with her if he didn’t have to.”

  “Whatever. If their families have been doing stuff together since Henry and what’s-her-face were kids, isn’t it possible that they did crafts together? Or that they made the sun-catchers in school?”

  “It’s possible. But why hang them now?”

  He shrugged. “Gwendolyn’s could have been up all along. Maybe Henry’s mom saw this one hanging and got craft envy and decided to hang hers, too.”

  “Henry’s mother would never get craft envy.”

  We’d reached the edge of the development. We didn’t need a code to get out; a sensor triggered the gate.

  “Know what’s even better than elementary school craft projects?” Peter asked.

  “What?”

  “Hot Cheetos.”

  Soon afterward, we pulled into the chain drugstore that doubled as our neighborhood convenience store. Inside, it was refrigerator-cold. In the chip aisle, Peter didn’t hesitate before choosing a jumbo-sized bag.

  “Where’s Henry’s dad’s office?” he asked, cradling the orange bag like a baby.

  “Far. Like Burbank.”

  “So maybe that’s where they are. Since his hours are long. Maybe they’re staying someplace nearby.”

  “Maybe…” It still didn’t explain the disconnected phone and abandoned newspapers, but it was an angle I hadn’t considered.

  “Have you tried calling his dad’s office?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s a good idea.”

  “I have my moments.” Peter strolled off for the refrigerator section, where he plucked a big bottle of Dr Pepper from the case. I paid for it without complaint.

  Six

  SO THEN I went home, found the law firm’s number online, called Henry’s father, and cleared everything up!

  Ha. Kidding.

  Mr. Hawking was “unavailable,” his secretary told me.

  Unavailable like in a meeting? I asked. Or unavailable like not there?

  “I’d be happy to take your name and number,” the cool-voiced woman on the other end told me.

  “Just let me know if he’s in the building,” I pleaded. “Just let me know if you’ve seen him since Tuesday.”

  “I am not at liberty to divulge that information,” she replied.

  I started to explain the situation, that I was a friend of his son’s and—

  Click. She put me through to voice mail. I left a garbled message and hung up.

  I went back to my good pal Google. In the search box, I typed in Henry’s mother’s name and “pet insurance.” There were a couple of hits but no phone number or employer name. On the plus side, I learned that pet insurance wasn’t just for dogs or cats anymore. Rats, mice, chinchillas, goats, geckos—they could all be covered. It was unclear whether rat and mice owners paid higher premiums if they also had cats.

  Despite Mrs. Hawking’s job, or maybe because of it, Henry had never been allowed to have a pet. “She says they carry diseases,” Henry explained. Children carry diseases, too, but that hadn’t stopped her from having one.

  I used to beg my mother for a cat, but she said that it was wrong to adopt an animal if you’re going to leave it alone all day. If Peter didn’t get a job soon, I might reopen negotiations.

  For now, Peter was back in his gloomy room, propped up on the unmade bed with his own cast-off laptop, surfing the Internet with one hand and shoveling hot Cheetos into his mouth with the other.

  I said, “I called Mr. Hawking’s law firm, but it didn’t get me anywhere.”

  “Urm,” he grunted.

  “Do you know if Mom’s home for dinner?”

  “I-uh-oh.”

  “Okay. I’m gonna take off. See you later.”

  “Urm.”

  I headed out the back gate and toward Henry’s house without any real plan. I knew there would be three newspapers in the driveway now, and there were. Still, the sight made my heart race.

  This time, I didn’t even bother ringing the front doorbell. Instead, I went straight to the garage, punched in the code, and slipped inside. I hit the button for the garage door. It slipped back down, sealing me inside with the Mini Cooper—aka the car Mr. Hawking drove to work every day. Of course he wasn’t in Burbank. I should have realized that before calling his work.

  I didn’t bother going through the big cabinets that lined the garage walls. Toilet paper. It wasn’t even funny anymore. With Henry missing, nothing was funny anymore.

  Well, except goat insurance. That was still funny.

  At the back of the garage, three steps led up to a door that could be unlocked using a security pad just like the one outside the garage. I climbed the steps and punched in the same numbers. With a c
lick, the door opened.

  Now came the race against time. The door opened up to a small hallway that led to the kitchen. I hurried around the corner to the laundry room. There, on the wall, a red light blinked on the white security pad. Digital numbers counted the seconds left to key in this code, which was different from the one in the garage: forty-seven seconds to go.

  Just like that, my mind went blank. I knew the code. I knew I knew it. But the sequence was jammed somewhere in the back of my brain, buried beneath pop song lyrics, important dates in medieval Europe, and the price of a Dr Pepper.

  The Hawkings had paid extra to have a security system that would alert the local police in the event of a break-in. That meant that if I didn’t come up with the code in—oh no, thirty-two seconds!—I was in huge trouble.

  Thirty-one seconds … thirty …

  Got it. I keyed in the number sequence and held my breath. A tone sounded, and the red light turned green.

  Heart thumping, I left the laundry room and went into the kitchen. The black granite counters were clear, and no dishes crowded the deep sink. I opened the dishwasher. Inside were plates and mugs and bowls: all clean. So they had taken the time to do dishes before leaving. That was good, right? They hadn’t fled in a panic. They hadn’t been abducted. Or, if they had been, their kidnapper was unusually tidy.

  I opened the refrigerator. There was some salad dressing, butter, pickles, jam, and a package of individually wrapped slices of cheese. In other words: nothing that told me anything.

  Next I checked the living room, which the family barely used, and the television room, which they used a lot. Nothing seemed out of place. Not that there was a lot to get messed up. Mr. and Mrs. Hawking did not believe in “nonessentials.” So they had couches and coffee tables, TVs, and a few framed family photos, but no books, art, souvenirs, knickknacks, or clutter of any kind. It was so clean, it was creepy.

  Again, I thought about the sun-catcher in the front window, the one Gwendolyn’s parents had peered at so intently. It had to mean something beyond “we have no taste.”

  A closed, locked door led to the home office. I’d never been in there, and it didn’t look like I’d start now. That left the upstairs bedrooms. The master suite was the first room on the right. It seemed wrong to invade Mr. and Mrs. Hawking’s privacy, but hey—I’d already gone through their garage cabinets and broken into their house.